I couldn’t exactly remember when my typical college drinking turned dark, but I knew it got totally out of control after the business was sold. Without a purpose, I quickly slipped into an underground world of sex, drugs, and alcohol.
It had been so funny the previous day when I had caught Cassidy talking about me. I had certainly been thinking about her, so it felt good to know she was thinking about me. But the more I thought about her, the more I knew I had to stay away from her. Not for my sake, if it was just my life then I would have gone after her for sure. But it wouldn’t look good for her to be messing around with a patient, so for the time being I would behave myself. Or at least I would try to behave myself.
“I’m having a great fucking day,” I exclaimed as I walked into group and found a seat.
“Let’s keep the bad language out of this,” Jarrod replied. “Why is your day so good?”
“I talked to my brother and it went pretty decent. I’m moved into my room with a door, and there is finally a little peace around here.”
“Great, so what’s next?” Jarrod asked.
“What do you mean? Nothing is next. Things are good. I’m good. Let’s not push for more. I’m happy.”
“That’s not how people stay happy, though. You’ve got to continue to move forward. Make goals. Practice your coping skills. You’re always working.”
“That’s just depressing. Can’t we just be happy and relax?”
“I don’t mean that you shouldn’t enjoy the moment. But in sobriety, you will have moments where you feel like everything is going great. But then you’ll stop going to meetings, you’ll stop seeing your therapist, and then bam, you’ve relapsed.”
“Wow, you’re a real Debbie Downer,” Brianna said.
“I get it. I understand,” I said.
“So, why aren’t you leaving for Christmas break?” Jarrod asked.
He blindsided me with the question. I thought the issue had been settled when Cassidy and I had been talking. I wasn’t ready to answer it again. Even though my brother and I had just had a decent conversation, nowhere during that conversation had I considered leaving and going to spend Christmas with them. That seemed odd to me.
“I don’t know,” I replied with my first real honest answer about why I wasn’t leaving.
“You’re afraid of failing,” Kimber said.
“Maybe. I guess. I don’t know.”
“My family wanted me home. I couldn’t stand the idea of them constantly asking me how things were going. Or what I was going to do when I got out. It was too much pressure.”
Her words resonated with me very much. If I had called Spencer, I was one hundred percent sure he would have asked me to come with him to his family’s house. Hell, my own brother and father might have even asked me to come home if they had known I had a break. But it seemed so damn stressful to consider letting outsiders into my treatment.
I didn’t want to disappoint them. Kimber was right – I didn’t want to be a failure. I wanted to finish my treatment and go back home in total control of myself. I wanted to be that guy they all looked up to and talked about what a great example I was. But even I wasn’t convinced I could really be that guy. My sobriety skills were so new that I didn’t have confidence in myself at all.
We finished our group session pretty quickly since there were only a few of us. I was excited to go swimming after. I hadn’t gotten the chance since the last time when Melanie and Cassidy had supervised us.
Swimming had always been a love of mine, and I had been so worried that I would fear water after what had happened before I arrived at treatment. But I was lucky that I didn’t remember much of that night and most of my fears were compartmentalized to my dreams. It probably helped that when we swam at Paradise Peak, there was always a staff member around and I didn’t have to worry about drowning. Although, simply being sober while I was in the pool probably was the easiest way I could avoid drowning.
“Hey, Kaitlin, I was told I’d be able to swim a little. How is that going to work?”
“Cassidy will take you out. Let her finish rounding with the other patients and you guys can head out there in fifteen minutes or so.”
A smile flashed across my face. I was going to be alone with Cassidy in the heated swimming pool. My bad behavior genes rushed through me as I thought about all the naughty things the two of us could do together if we were alone.
Then my practical side took over, and I remembered that I was trying to behave myself so she wouldn’t get in trouble at work. It was funny how much I had grown even in the female department. When I was back at home, I couldn’t remember ever thinking about the consequences of having sex with a woman.
I used a condom and that was all I cared about. When a girl had a broken heart or got angry when I asked her to leave, I really didn’t have any emotion about it at all. It was just how I was, and I cringed as I remembered my old ways. I had been an absolute jerk and there was no way around it. I couldn’t defend my past behavior whatsoever. Nothing about how I treated women was how a respectable man should act.
Respect seemed to be a new theme in my conscious thought. I wanted my family to respect me. I wanted my business partner to respect me. Hell, I even wanted Cassidy to respect me. I felt like an actual adult as I worked to rebuild all the relationships from my past and possibly the ones of my future.
Fifteen minutes went by, then thirty. I had started to think that Cassidy didn’t want to be alone with me in a pool.
“How did you manage this one?” she asked as she stood in my open doorway with her plain, red swimsuit on and a towel wrapped around her.